Pingie: HTTP:: UK Ponders Own Space Agency

HTTP:: UK Ponders Own Space Agency
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Over the following 12 weeks, representatives of academies, universities and industrialists in the United Kingdom will meet and discuss whether a national space agency is necessary for the country at this point, or if the British National Space Center should be left in charge of robotic explorations. The Center has a known anti-human spaceflight policy, and does not contribute to the International Space Station (ISS). With the selection of Major Tim Peake, a former helicopter pilot, as the country's first astronaut to be recruited by the European Space Agency, the UK is beginning to play a more important role in the industry. This has led Science Minister Lord Drayson to call for the meeting. “Both in terms of raising the profile of space, which is a fantastic asset in the UK, and in terms of organizing ourselves more efficiently, I think that an agency is the way to go,” he explained in an interview with the BBC News. At this point, all space-related programs the count!
ry is involved in are run by a conglomerate of departments in the government, working together with various research councils and private investors, but the funding for these efforts is not consolidated, and all projects are subjected to unnecessary risks, analysts believe. Currently, the BNSC only facilitates players in the industry to meet and d...
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http://news.softpedia.com/news/UK-Ponders-Own-Space-Agency-117064.shtml